Tributes paid to war veteran
Florence Green with Hannah Shaw, one of RAF Marhams current mess stewards, on her 109th birthday
The daughter of the last surviving person who served in the First World War has spoken of her pride.
June Evetts, 76, of Oundle, said she was proud of her mother Florence Green, who served in the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) in 1918, who died on Saturday at the age of 110.
She said: “She led an amazing and extraordinary life. She must have seen a lot of changes in her time.
“I never heard anyone say a bad word about her. She would never blow her own trumpet and certainly wouldn’t shout about the fact she was the last veteran.
“She was, however, very proud of what she did and we are all very proud of her.
“Her death does close the book on the First World War as there are no veterans left now.”
Mrs Green, a great-grandmother, joined the WRAF as a 17-year-old in the late summer of 1918, two months before the Armistice, and left in July 1919.
She served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough in Norfolk.
Though she never saw front-line action, she is classed as having served in the war.
Mrs Green, who was born in London before moving to Norfolk, had been at Briar House care home in King’s Lynn, where she died in her sleep, since the end of November. She had lived with her daughter May, 90, in King’s Lynn, until then.
As well as June and May, they had a son, Bob, 86, who is thought to live in Edinburgh. She is also survived by four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
The world’s last known combat veteran of the First World War, Claude Choules, died in Australia aged 110 last May.
It was previously thought that Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, who both died in July 2009, had been the last Britons to serve in the First World War.
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